Movie review: 'Paris' features a swirl of lives in the city of light

Ed Symkus

Thursday

Sep 24, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 24, 2009 at 7:48 AM

Writer-director Cedric Klapisch's film, "Paris" is a valentine to the French capitol which serves as a backdrop to the life of a professional dancer, his sister, and a very large cast of secondary characters who live in the city.

The most recent movie named after a geographical place was “Australia,” the sprawling, old-fashioned Western that should have been titled “Kangaroo Cattle Drive” or “Little Big Woman.”

But “Paris” is aptly named; it’s a celebration of life in the City of Lights, and writer-director Cedric Klapisch never lets you forget it.

He opens his wonderfully tumultuous film with scenes of people all over the gorgeous city – people walking, driving, riding. Then he gives us sweeping panoramas of the French capital, taking care to catch the Eifel Tower in everything from a distant glowing shot to a detailed close-up.

But it’s people that we get up close and personal with, not the landmarks. Among them are Pierre (Romain Duris), a professional dancer with a bad ticker who’s just been told that a heart transplant might possibly save his life; his older sister Elise (the radiant Juliette Binoche), a social worker and single mom who, at 40, has given up on ever finding love again; and Roland (Fabrice Luchini) a self-hating history professor with a hankering for the beautiful Laetitia (Melanie Laurent), a student in his class.

Those are the main characters. They’re joined by a wide-ranging cast of background folks, from a nameless boss-from-hell at a bakery, to a happy flirt named Caroline, to an unnamed psychiatrist who gets a patient who doesn’t believe in the process of psychiatry to open up. There are various other folks who, even though they seem not to like each other, somehow keep ending up in bed together. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in each of these characters.

But the focus always returns to the once vibrant, now-sad Pierre, who is having difficulty accepting his medical diagnosis. Instead of dancing onstage in bright, colorful clothing and showing off a dazzling smile, he spends most of his time padding around his apartment, watching old home movies or walking out onto his balcony where he can see the denizens of Paris below, all living out their busy lives, while he might be dying.

There’s emotional help from his sister, who moves in with her three kids – which lightens up his mood. And brother and sister, who seem to have drifted apart, enjoy getting back together again, even under these trying circumstances. But Binoche has been asked to play a character who is shy and unsure of herself. So, ironically, much of Pierre’s time is spent giving her pep talks about how much she has to live for.

Klapisch keeps the mood and pace freewheeling, inserts some well placed comic scenes with tragic situations, and keeps jumping around between people and places. At one point there’s the unpleasant business of bad news in a doctor’s office, but soon after, he gives us some awkward funniness in the bedroom. His cameras jump smoothly from a walkway at a fashion show to a crowded bar where a band is playing up a storm of French rockabilly. Match that last part up with classical and jazzy variations on Erik Satie’s familiar “Gnossienne 1,” and you’ve got a soundtrack that’s as far-ranging as the cast of characters.

They are people from academia and factory workers and partygoers, and they’re all looking for love. Yet most of them end up being afraid of it when they find it. Well, except for Elise, who aside from being one of cinema’s best casual cursers, seems to be quite fine on her own, with her three kids. But this is Paris. Who knows what’s waiting for her around the next corner.